Hi everyone, introducing my new WIP United We Stand.
It’s an occasionally open-world political adventure set in a fictional European nation in the 1930s against the backdrop of the great depression and the rise of fascism.
There hasn’t really been a proper political CS game yet and that is a niche i’ve been aspiring to fill for a long time. It’s been too long since i published anything and I’m really hoping to get this WIP going this summer. (Update, June 2017, really want to get it finished late this summer! Optimistic but that’s the aspiration)
Through the link you will find what I have written so far, 3 chapters for each of the 2 branches of the story. Your first choice will be to decided whether you are a member of the fascist or socialist party. Then there is a rather linear opening chapter which establishes the setting before the switch in chapters 2 & 3 to a more open world format where you get to explore the city and carry out a wide variety of tasks for your party.
The game will follow your character’s career and party’s fortunes over several years with the goal being to get in to power and stay there. Set in the brutal world of 1930s european politics, expect bitter arguments to spill over into street violence, poverty and unemployment to dog the nation and the spectre of international fascism to hang heavy over the story. This project is not a sequel or plot-wise at all related to my previous hosted game, divided we fall, but I suppose you could term it a spiritual successor.
Hey. You made divided we fall? damn that fact alone is enough to have me really excited for this game! please make the fascists playable. That was one thing I really loved. I didn’t know much about the Spanish civil war prior to your game. And wen I ask people on the net if Franco was moral, everyone says depends who you ask/it’s more complicated than that etc. Don’t think that’s the case with other fascist parties, but who knows? Maybe I’ll learn also I think you did it in a very respectful and informative manner and playing both sides in potentially the same scene was so amazing, never seen that done before. sorry for the ramble, but very excited now sounds like a great idea, will give the yp a go now.
Also I like the title. fits well, divided we fall and united we stand and the open world sounds amazing too! I picture a political tin star, damn I need to calm down lol.
@AlexClifford1994
by avoiding the racism and antisemitism you are already reducing moral problems to minimum IMHO. at its core Unlike Naziism fascism is like Communism idea for utopia, Throught just like communism it didnt turn out well, The fact that ideas however were corrupted into shit doesnt mean that ideas were horrible before they turned to shit. Besides If you go the fascist bath and actually give player chance to create Non corrupt Effective Fascist Nation, you are going to have something no other game has as of yet.and that is making something which failed in RL Reallystically work in fiction that is quiete close to the RL world. Furthmore i think Choice of game fanbase can handle it. We are adults and good people this certainly isnt going to turn us into little mussolinis.
Furthmore as Anarcho-Communist im going to advise you that if you include both sides NOBODY is going to accuse you of bias, By adding both sides you ironically avoid, Political bickering in the thread.
I think you should include both party but make the whole thing moraly grey with good and bad persons in both parties. After all nothing stop a good person from being misguided. Many member of the nazi party regreted it later. One example I could give is that SS officer who felt guilty and decided to help the danish jews escape. He was a scumbag SS but his action still saved many peoples. And after all like during ww2, each side did something terrible. Some more than others but in the end everyone was a d*ck. It could actualy be interesting to play a guilt ridden fascist trying to change stuff from the inside or escape. I mean, the fascist party was pretty brutal even toward its own members so it would put your life to risk. Just think about when Mussolini received death threats by the party he created because he wasnt violent enough.
P.S I’m still your number one fan m8. You’re the one who catter to my hunger for history and politic here. I already know this game is going to be amazing no matter wich path you take.
just played the yp and loved it! so far you’re proving my point the fascist path is well written(as is the other) and doesn’t come across as glorifying them or anything. Also had a quick read of the guide and love all the detail and I think yeah, ditto what others said. If you google milgram’s study(or if you know about it) and other such studies like the Stanford prison experiment and derren brown’s the gameshow you can really see that it is easy for good people to get misguided/commit evil acts.
Also if this project end up getting deeper than planned, you could even add a democratic path. That way the three main ideologies of the time are all represented. I can see us negotiating a coalition between two parties if the third one become too powerfull. I mean, all three ideologies hated each others with a passion and find common ground when they talk about the third one.
I also wonder if we are going to be able to chose our position on the political scale so a left path could lead to full blown hardcore communism just as much as it could lead to simple socialism.
Also you know now that I think of it, if you base your fascism on italian fascism instead of german fascism you shouldnt have problems with anti-semitism and stuff. There was actualy a big number of itslian jews in the itslian fascist party. It was just a bunch of ultra violent nationalists with a hate for socialism. Wich is funny because mussolini used to be a socialist.
I really like it… the new order party is very interesting to play, nice uniform and fighting reds is fun. Can we later have interactions with the queen or the prince and are their any romance options later on ?
I’m truly excited for this work. I have stated that "Divided We Fall is one of the best published titles put out to date.
I’m still digesting the sample provided but I do have a thought for your consideration regarding the question: should you play a fascist party member without the associated bad that pushes the envelope.
Have you considered making the opposite pairing of the socialist left party a reactionary Royalist party?
Many countries in Europe (all this you most likely know) had a restoration type of party that worked to restore the prior ancient regime and re-empower their old nobility during the interwar years. Why not turn the grey-shirts into Royalists and then you can truly have opposite pairings without the fascists.
You can also write the fascists as a non-MC party if you desire, a faction that introduces problems and dilemmas that you can then have the MC react… the Royalists in Greece fighting to keep the Monarchy free from fascist overtones…etc.
I’ll give my initial feedback for your released material later and I’m glad you have decided to tackle this project.
I don’t consider fascist parties worse than left hard communists parties. However people play perfectly cool being a Soviet commie party if you could be Stalin you should be Hitler too. Because Stalin killed more jews and people than Hitler. Both regimes were equally bad and cruel. So a game who show both miseries and hypocrisy values would be great. I hope you include the how they acted in private and what they say were totally different.
Now this is something I can get behind i love this and I really like how solidarity seems alot like real political anarchism… At least more than other wips and games that say the anarchist group just want to burn everything
What I missed from the demo is could choose my character background. Background was very important back them. Imagine a family of solidarity members the youngest son daughter ends in new order.
I would love being a noble. No need many origins just two or three could add a lot. If i could choose 3 i would go for German origin. A noble origin and an old socialist family
I played the fascist and felt if you decide to continue forward, it should be fine. The issue I have is that the overall feeling I’m getting from the story is Germany and Hitler’s party - as in too much mirroring them. This is supposed to be Monrovia but everything from the beer hall to the trench warfare experience screams Germany 100%/
I also saw a few low level errors but I’m sure your testers will point those out when your ready.
I really think your story would be better going with a Royalist party perspective but the Fascist storyline is fine. Where it starts to falter is it is too close to the one historical example that taints it … I hope that makes sense.
I feel bad being blunt but I feel it is necessary now when it would be easiest to tweak.
I don’t understand why play as fascists is bad and play as hard communist is good . I mean they are the same anti democrats violent people. The story is ok Moravia is like Linchestein or a very German influence fictional place so the beer and all that has sense.
I loved Divided we Fall, I hope since this based on a functional setting we can impact the world in a larger way and like bring ourselves to power and order the deaths of our enemies.
The EU itself is very touchy with regards to anything portraying Fascists of prewar period … to the point where Germany might even have issues with a gaming app such as this. You, being in Spain surely knows this.
Your absolutely correct though and @AlexClifford1994 is a talented enough writer that if anyone could pull such a story set in the 1930’s prewar years he should … but anything associated with Fascists is automatically drop-kicked in today’s world. Its parallel in the US is the Confederates … which caused many games to be banned from Amazon just because they had that name in them - history and history setting be damned.
Edit - as far as the mirroring Germany too much; we’ll just disagree with our conclusions… the story mirrors Germany so much that to place it anywhere but Germany so far is problematic.
I see the European phobia to talking or playing seriously about fascism is rather stupid period. How could show you to youngsters how terrible they were and how their ideas turned in practice if you censure anything that talks about it. Communists did a terrible damage in Eastern Europe 75 years and people don’t complain.
In Spain write or even playing about our fascist dictatorship regime is normalized and perfectly fine. Also everyone knows how terrible both sides o war were. There are strategy games about our civil war and you could be both sides and win as both sides and never were any censure.
Well this takes me back to my high school history classes about the decline of Weimar Germany and the rise of Fascism.
Also getting some October Revolution vibes from the Solidarity playthrough.
Very interesting WIP, glad to see its taking a realistic approach (i.e. thankfully no magic or supernatural distractions) with a historical context - makes it feel very much like a historic political game that I haven’t seen the likes of before until now.
Question - will there be choices to customize the backstory of the MC, their family, their socio-economical status, why they joined a political party and what attracted them to its ideologies etc?
For e.g. in a Solidarity playthrough wouldn’t it be funny if the MC actually came from a rather privileged background but chose to align themselves with a far left organization? And what their family might think of them?
please make the fascists playable. That was one thing I really loved. I didn’t know much about the Spanish civil war prior to your game. And wen I ask people on the net if Franco was moral, everyone says depends who you ask/it’s more complicated than that etc. Don’t think that’s the case with other fascist parties, but who knows? Maybe I’ll learn 
also I think you did it in a very respectful and informative manner and playing both sides in potentially the same scene was so amazing, never seen that done before. sorry for the ramble, but very excited now 
and the open world sounds amazing too! I picture a political tin star, damn I need to calm down lol.